Educational project

Founded in 1892, SEK International Institution is a private educational organization that offers families an outstanding international education option for their children, covering pre-school, primary, and secondary education at SEK schools to higher education at the institution’s universities.

All SEK International Institution schools are officially recognized worldwide, with 26 schools currently established in countries across the globe, including Spain, Chile, Guatemala, Hungary, Panama, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Paraguay, Dominican Republic, South Africa, United Kingdom, Mexico, Italy, Romania, Portugal and the United States, as well as two universities located in Ecuador and Chile, and a higher education center, located in Spain.

The SEK Educational Project is underpinned by the concept of the student as an autonomous and self-directed individual who must take the reins of his or her own learning. SEK approaches learning as an active and constructive search in which not only content but also the processes by which knowledge is acquired matters.

SEK believes that the acquisition of knowledge is only part of a school learning environment and supports the all-round development of students who must also adjust to the needs of today’s society and prepare for the demands of the future. Therefore, SEK proposes that students:

• Learn to learn, that is, develop skills that enhance self-directed learning. Learning to know means developing metacognitive skills and being strategic.
• Learn to be. For SEK International Institution, learning to be a person means developing the values demanded by 21^st-century society: well-rounded and balanced, with high self-esteem, thoughtful, independent, responsible, critical, supportive, and with a respect for pluralism.
• Learn to do. Knowledge must have a practical application and students must be aware of the usefulness of the knowledge they acquire. To that end, the processes through which knowledge is acquired and the development of specific skills and competences in the different areas of the curriculum are of particular importance.

Learning to do also means learning to live together. Today’s globalized society poses new educational challenges that SEK willingly accepts. SEK International Institution proposes learning to live together as one of its core objectives. Therefore, students will develop values such as shared responsibility, tolerance, cooperation, shared decision-making, and respect for diversity. SEK believes that teamwork promotes these values.

But learning to do has another connotation: learning initiative. To be successful in today’s society one must be strategic, have the ability to take initiative and work as a team, make quick and effective decisions, and evaluate the results of actions. To ensure that learning is self-directed and that the student feels in control of his/her own education, the student must identify his/her characteristics as a student and learn how to monitor and regulate these individual cognitive processes.

SEK International Institution proposes all of the above as objectives towards which educational efforts should be directed. Developing these skills should be reflected in the schools’ operational objectives and explicitly included in the teaching plans.

The SEK Educational Project proposes that the teacher’s role is to help, guide, and facilitate materials and learning, making it possible for the student to create his/her own meanings. Which is why it is crucial that the teacher contribute to creating a warm environment of respect, empathy, honesty, and collaboration, which is subsequently translated into specific objectives that teachers will include in their plans. SEK is thus dedicated to education for a society in which problem-solving, decision-making, and selecting information is increasingly more important, with a commitment to teaching students how to take charge of their own knowledge building.